The best of thespellofwakinghours (2010 – 2016)

Over the past seven years, I’ve had the pleasure and fortune to see over three-hundred-and-twenty productions in Sydney and interstate, across various mainstage, independent, and underground venues, by a variety of artists and companies with diverse resources, and the results contained within this blog speak for themselves.

As I write this, the future of this blog is uncertain – new adventures await, and I am putting it on hold until I can figure out the best way to continue it in the future. It will stay here as a record and a resource for theatre-makers and theatre-lovers alike.

Thank you to all the artists – mainstage and independent alike – who have invited me to your shows, who have taken the time out to share your thoughts and knowledge, and who have got in touch for one reason or another.

Sometimes you see a show that sticks with you for whatever reason hours, days, weeks, months – even years – later, and it is in honour of these shows that I have compiled the following list, celebrating the rich and wonderful hours of adventures I’ve spent in theatres over the past seven years. So, in a roughly chronological order, here are the brain-wormy experiences that comprise the spell of waking hours.

The Playlist: 2016 at the theatre

As with previous years, ‘The Playlist’ is a musical summary of the year’s theatre-going. The rule is (mostly) simple: find a piece of music that encapsulates either the production or my response to it, or both as the case often is. The only catch is I cannot re-use a piece from a previous year, even if it is the same text (return seasons of a production are excused).

Thus follows The Playlist for 2016.

2016, the verdict

THEATRE

Event(s) of the Year A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Shakespeare’s Globe Golem – 1927, presented by STC The Golden Age – STC Fase, four movements to the music of Steve Reich – Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Sydney Festival A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Theatre for A New Audience
Honourable Mention Thomas Murray and the Upside Down River – Stone Soup & Griffin Independent Disgraced; The Hanging – STC Inner Voices – Don’t Look Away The Literati – Bell Shakespeare & Griffin Theatre Company Babes in the Woods – Don’t Look Away
Dishonourable Mention (or The Shovel) The Blind Giant is Dancing – Belvoir The Great Fire – Belvoir Twelfth Night – Belvoir Power Plays – STC A Midsummer Night’s Dream – STC
Best (New Australian) Play Skylab, Melodie Reynolds-Diarra (National Play Festival) Thomas Murray and the Upside Down River, Reg Cribb The Turquoise Elephant, Stephen Carleton Picnic at Hanging Rock, Tom Wright, after Joan Lindsay
Best Design (Set, Costume, Lighting, Sound, Other) David Fleischer (set & costume) – The Golden Age Dann Barber (set) – Thomas Murray and the Upside Down River 1927 (projections/lighting/set) – Golem Andrew Bailey (‘set’) – Lungs Zjarie Paige-Butterworth (costumes) – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Gabriella Tylesova (set & costume) – A Flea in Her Ear Luke Smiles (motion laboratories) (soundtrack) – Girl Asleep
Shakesproud A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Shakespeare’s Globe (live web-stream) A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Theatre for A New Audience (filmed)	The ‘Room Temperature’ Award Arcadia – STC Things I Know To Be True – STCSA & Frantic Assembly

Sarah Goodes and the leap of faith

When John Doyle’s play Vere (Faith) was announced as part of Sydney Theatre Company’s 2013 season, I leapt at the chance to become acquainted with director Sarah Goodes’ work. I had heard positive reviews from her previous productions at STC – Anthony Neilson’s Edward Gant's Amazing Feats of Loneliness in 2011, and Hilary Bell’s The Splinter in 2012 – so although I had been unable to see both those productions, I knew of her work’s reputation as being generous-spirited, inquisitive, and compassionate pieces of theatre.

Since 2013, I’ve had the pleasure to see four of her productions, with a fifth – Orlando – about to open. Following the end of Battle of Waterloo’s run, I sat down with Goodes for a discussion about her work as an independent theatre-maker and as a Resident Director at STC, the importance of new work, the role of a director, and the seriousness of playing.